Aggregating and Disaggregating Data at a neighbourhood level in

Sunderland and Birmingham: Crime and Community Cohesion

Alan MiddletonThe Governance foundation

Two Research Projects

• The Social Impact of Large-scale Housing Investment in Sunderland• Aggregating from Output Areas to Neighbourhoods

(Housing Management Areas)

• Community Cohesion in Handsworth and Lozells, Birmingham– Disaggregating from Wards to

Neighbourhoods

The Social Impact of Large-scale Housing Investment in Sunderland

• Longitudinal Study: First Phase• To measure the social and economic impact of

housing investment in Sunderland, looking at:– Housing management issues– Employment & unemployment – Community safety – Levels of education and skills– Poor health

• Develop a methodology that can be used by other organisations

An Outcome

• The development of a model that uses primary and secondary data to link indicators such as the social, economic and ethnic make-up of households with spatial statistics relating to education, housing, health, crime and employment.

Issues

1. The Problem of Evidence2. Overcoming the problem3. Community Cohesion 4. Satisfaction with Homes and the Environment5. Vulnerable Groups

The Policy Context

• The National Context: Sustainable Communities, Cohesive Communities and Evidence-based Policy

The Problem of Evidence 1

• Issues with the Collection of Secondary Data for Neighbourhood Analysis in Sunderland

• Spatial Units and Neighbourhood Activity• Collection of Data from Gentoo• Socio-Economic Data and Census Data

– Neighbourhood Statistics

• Health Data• Crime Data• Education Data

Overcoming the Problem of Evidence

• Social and Economic Indicators– Key Facts– Spatial Units and Secondary Social and

Economic Data• The Use of Indices of Multiple Deprivation• Housing, Health and Social Services for an

Aging Population

– Overcoming Secondary Data Problems– How the model would work

Satisfaction with Homes and Environment

• Overall satisfaction levels in Sunderland

• Satisfaction Analysis for Selected Estates

Vulnerable Groups

• Satisfaction with Properties• Perceptions of Local Neighbourhoods and

Areas.• Community Facilities & Activities• Community Interaction and Relations• Satisfaction with Gentoo and Key Agency

Services • Excellent Customer Status• Views of Young Black and Minority Ethnic

People

2006 Local Government White Paper

• a responsibility on councils to provide strategic and political leadership and involve the full range of stakeholders in developing and delivering a shared vision for their area

• all key local partners working together to address the risks and challenges facing the areas, using their combined resources to best effect

• involving and empowering communities, acknowledging that services will be improved and communities strengthened only if local people are effectively engaged and empowered, as individuals and through organisations representing them

• through elected local government, wider and stronger local accountability for public services and local outcomes, rebuilding trust between citizen and the state.

Creating Strong, Safe and Prosperous Communities

• Councils to provide strategic leadership

• Involving and empowering communities

• Local partners working together• Stronger local accountability for

public services

Commission on Integration and Cohesion

Cohesion is about:

• ‘How we all get on and secure benefits that are mutually desirable for our communities and ourselves’.

• Addressing multiple issues at the same time

• Multiple local action and the fair allocation of public services

Evidence-based policy

• ‘Putting the best available evidence from research at the heart of policy development and implementation’.

For local inter-agency collaboration in support of sustainable, empowered and

cohesive communities:

• What would constitute evidence?• What evidence is needed to evaluate

policy outcomes?• What spatial scale is appropriate for

collation and analysis?• Whose responsibility is it to gather and

evaluate this information?

• Regional Economic Strategy

• Regional Spatial Strategy

• Regional Spatial Strategy

• City Housing Strategy

Lack of clarity about definitions, evidence and responsibilities

Region-City-Community

• The regional authorities think that implementing, monitoring and evaluating community-based strategies are the responsibility of ‘sub-regional’ authorities

• City authorities think they are the responsibility of non-statutory partnerships

Secondary data and Neighbourhood Analysis

• National– Lack of leadership on evidence for neighbourhood

policy• Not technologies and techniques for spatial analysis• Not the indicators of quality of life

• Regional and local– Lack of coherence between administrative and spatial

boundaries– Low priority given to gathering and using

neighbourhood statistics– Different spatial units of analysis– Failure to share information

CLG Data for Neighbourhood Renewal (excl Census & IMD)

Total P&SD Sources and Spatial Units• Population 89 6 LSOA; MSOA• Deprivation 87 5 All DWP LSOA (2004 only)• Employment 155 36 16 DWP LSOA; 18 ONS MSOA• Education 177 5 1998 WARD; 2003 WARD; 3LSOA

• Health 197 3 2DWP; 2003 ward• Housing 69 4 OA; Postcode; 2003 ward; MSOA

• Crime 83 2 LSOA; MSOA• Liveability 82 13 11 MSOA; 2003 ward; 1 LSOA• Diversity 65 5 3 DWP LSOA; 2 MSOA• Disability 43 3 All DWP LSOA• Children 193 7 1998 ward; 2003 w.; 4LSOA; MSOA

• Older People 50 2 All DWP LSOAAll DWP LSOA data available for 2004 only; otherwise 2003 wards

Selected Regional and Local Issues

• Ward boundaries changed in 2004 but at the beginning of the project, most authorities still appeared to be using old ward boundaries for analysis.

• The ward boundaries are, in any case, too crude for our purposes. Meaningful housing management areas, like estates, often lie across ward boundaries.

• Census data was gathered on the basis of enumeration district (EDs) before 2001. Some authorities did not change to OAs until later.

• Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs) are not co-terminus with housing management areas and they cannot be aggregated up to allow a fit with housing management information.

• The basic unit of analysis in the Census changed from enumeration districts in 1991 to Output Areas (OAs) in 2001. The Output Area boundaries and aggregated data for Super Output Areas (SOAs) are not co-terminus with 2004 wards.

• Census data, gathered in 2001, is not only already seven years out of date but is also presented in terms of 1982 wards by some agencies

Secondary Data:

• Different spatial units of analysis for different purposes

• No central control over geographies

• Uneven commitment to gathering data

• Not using data that is gathered

• Difficulty for evidence-based resource allocation

IMD and inter-agency collaboration

• Neighbourhoods– Most of the LSOAs cover more than one

neighbourhood

• Management Areas– In the 11 most deprived parts of Sunderland:

• two of the LSOAs involve four Gentoo Management Areas

• a further four LSOAs cover three Management Areas.

Sunderland geographies

Birmingham Geographies

• City• Perry Barr Constituency• 2001 ward (Handsworth)• 2004 Ward (Lozells and East Handsworth)• Urban Living (Housing Market Renewal)• Neighbourhood Management Areas (four

neighbourhoods that do not correspond to any of the above)

• Popular perceptions

Community Cohesion in Birmingham

• 2005 Disturbances in Handsworth/Lozells

• 2008 Ward data on cohesion

• 2008 neighbourhood data on cohesion

Evidence and Inter-agency Collaboration

• Crime and community safety data exists, and it can be aggregated to management boundaries and estates

• Education data exists, but it is not even made available to other departments within SCC [cf Birmingham]

• Health data does not currently exist at the levels needed for collaborative working

Reminder

• If policy is about creating cohesive and sustainable communities through inter-professional working:– How will organisations allocate resources to

areas where joint working is needed?– How will we monitor and evaluate the

outcomes?

Housing, Health and Social Services for an Ageing Population

• NHS based on prevention

• Implies integration with other providers of services

• Increasingly in communities that are living longer

• Increasing need to share information

• Little indication as to how this will be done in practice

Housing, Health and Social Services for an Ageing Population

• Front-line professional in all three services will know where most of the elderly live and will interact with them as cases become known to them

• This information does not always rise up the information hierarchy of complex organisations, to reach the levels where decisions about resources are being made.

• There is a strategic issue about how the limited resources of organisations get distributed. Front-line professional will also be in competition for these resources and often it will be those who make themselves heard who will gain access to them.

• There is also a strategic issues about how the different organisation work together to deal with different aspects of the needs of the elderly.

• In order to tackle these strategic issues, reliable information needs to be available to the key decision-makers.

The Next Stage

• Data from an out-of-date Census will become useful again in three years time

• Changing social and economic profiles on 12 Estates in Sunderland and Handsworth and Lozells

• Census information linked to n’hoods and housing management areas

• Model linking postcodes, neighbourhoods, OAs, LSOAs, management areas, 2004 wards, renewal areas, new build areas

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The Governance foundation

Contact:Alan Middleton at:alan.middleton@governancefoundation.orgwww.governancefoundation.org